June 26 and Polygamy

AUTHOR: Mark Henkel Mark Henkel is both the National Polygamy Advocate for the overall National Polygamy Rights Movement for Consenting Adults. He has been interviewed and reported by numerous major media in the United States as well as cited in numerous books and research papers. He is also a professional speaker who has given numerous speeches before non-polygamous audiences, including a Keynote Speech at Yale. See: http://www.youtube.com/NationalPolygamyAdvocate FMI, see http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate Mark Henkel personally shares how and why June 26th is such an unforgettable anniversary for Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy.

JUNE 26, 1993

It was 26 years ago today. The date of June 26, 1993, is permanently etched in my memory. On this date in history, I came to the first awareness that I would do something larger than myself, seriously significant, and even history-changing. Some would call this experience an epiphany. Christians would call it a calling. The devout would call it a revelation. Meditators would call it listening to the "still, small voice."

No matter what one calls it, I will always remember the date of June 26, 1993, as one of the most important personal anniversaries of my own life. It is the date that I presciently knew with all confident certainty that over the coming years of my existence, I would do something to be changing history.

The biggest - and perhaps even the most humorous - irony of that experience is that, at that time of June 26, 1993, I had neither any inkling nor any foreknowledge of how it was going to happen. All I knew is that I knew - I knew it would be happening.

By that Autumn, I serendipitously came across the most profound dichotomy I had have ever observed. Despite not even looking for it, the conception of this concept was conceived. Upon studying the Bible by itself, by letting its own words self-declare its actual Biblical positions by itself, and in doing so with neither any confirmation bias nor any presuppositions to taint/misinterpret its own truths, I realized two glaring facts.

Yes, I describe them as facts because they are both - in fact - absolute facts. First fact, according to the Bible, no one in the Bible was ever married "by government." Second fact, in addition to the Bible being a record of dozens of Biblical heroes having more than one wife, that marital form known as polygamy itself was/is never called a sin, never rebuked, never called to be repented, and absolutely never prohibited anywhere in the Bible.

Considering that most Christians mistakenly do not even genuinely contemplate about this dichotomy (many even misguidedly asserting that "polygamy is a sin"), these two blatant facts piqued my intellectual curiosity.

GESTATION & BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

For my particular personality pattern, when the fire of my intellectual curiosity gets lit, I become like a dog on a bone to learn more - smiling, passionate, determined, and not even caring that that took two different metaphors to illustrate that point. As a young man who - only a few years earlier - had graduated college with 2 degrees in 3 years with a 4.0 grade point average, getting to the bottom of understanding and solving this dichotomy (between what the Bible itself says and what other Christians assert that it says) re-ignited my already-proven intensive "I-want-to-learn-more" studying-skills as a proverbial canine hunger to get to the meat of the matter. Yes, I had to continue that double-metaphor here.

I soon shared what I was discovering with my amazing wife, and she studied with me too. The deeper into this intellectual pursuit that she and I studied these facts of the Bible, the clearer it all became for us. As a friend (to whom I had shown these facts) later described this initial realization-experience, "Once you see it, you can't ever not see it."

The next following months became a period of gestation - studying, documenting, and determining the best way to bring these realized facts to other Christians (and beyond). I had to study, pray, and put together the forms of duplicatable doctrinal exegeses that could be more easily received by others when they are first learning about these facts.

Completing the pregnancy of this gestation, I began publishing a newspaper that was distributed throughout southern Maine, called, The Standard Bearer. Publishing this newspaper with a current-issues format, each issue would also contain a special article - a "Truth Tract." Each such article would lay down the different, duplicatable, doctrinal details from the Bible, showing these facts. Thereby, the modern Christian Polygamy movement was officially born with the first issue of that newspaper on July 4th, 1994.

In that infancy, the arguments duplicated and spread. With the newly invented internet, I founded the TruthBearer.org organization in 1997. With a website having a never-before-possible worldwide audience, I discontinued the local newspaper in early 1998. On July 13, 1999, I helped us self-protect our 5 year old movement by establishing the standard of Christian Polygamy, called Love-not-Force. From 2000 on, the media had begun calling upon me for interviews about this young history-changing movement. On August 19, 2001, we celebrated the very first annual Polygamy Day ®.

JUNE 26, 2003

And then it happened.

On June 26, 2003, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided Lawrence v. Texas. Specifically, the Decision overturned anti-sodomy laws as a "right to privacy" for consenting adults in their own homes. The Dissent by Justice Scalia revealed how that Decision should equally mean overturning anti-polygamy laws for the identical reasons. Referring to how this Decision was thereby overturning a past precedent (Bowers v. Hardwick, 1986), Justice Scalia dissented, saying, "State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage... are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers' validation of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called into question by today's decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding."

Moreover, Scalia's Dissent was no one-time fluke, either. Back in 1996, in Romer v. Evans (which also overturned a previous precedent), SCOTUS decided that laws may not "impermissibly target" a class of individuals, such as homosexuals. Scalia made a similar Dissent, referencing the effect of existing anti-polygamy laws: "Polygamists, and those who have a polygamous 'orientation,' have been 'singled out' by these provisions for much more severe treatment than merely denial of favored status... The Court's Disposition today suggests that these provisions are unconstitutional; and that polygamy must be permitted in these States... --unless, of course, polygamists for some reason have fewer constitutional rights than homosexuals."

Hence, with Lawrence v. Texas, not only did polygamists then have two SCOTUS precedents with which to argue for overturning anti-polygamy laws, but it was the renowned conservative Justice Scalia, himself, whose precisely-worded Dissents outright taught pro-polygamists how to make those very arguments. Being the second such Dissent, it was not difficult to see an unintended confirmation from Scalia's indirect instruction.

And one must not neglect to note: that happened on June 26, 2003.

Yes, that was the exact 10-year anniversary date of when I had experienced my own personal epiphany on June 26, 1993. Regardless of whether one perceives it as co-incidence or confirmation, this startling serendipity still can capture a thinking-person's attention - even if just being surprised.

It certainly caught mine.

MOVEMENT GROWS UP - AND EXPANDS

The Christian Polygamy movement continued to grow. On August 16, 2005, my appearance on CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), on renowned Pat Robertson's "700 Club" TV show, unexpectedly made history. The reporter rightly acknowledged both myself and the movement as "evangelical Christians." Unwittingly, the show publicly demonstrated that the two words, "Christian" and "polygamy," are not a contradiction in terms. History had been made indeed!

That consequently catapulted me to the national stage as the advocate for all forms of consenting adult polygamy - even beyond Christian Polygamy. Indeed, having my unique background meant that suddenly - for the first time in history - someone could stand on the national stage to speak for polygamy rights and not be dismissed as Mormon, Muslim, liberal, lascivious, or anti-woman.

Giving even more numerous media interviews, I had become the established National Polygamy Advocate for the even-larger overall polygamy rights movement of Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy (UCAP) of all forms. At this point, as long as each form was only involving Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy, I was able to stand up for Secular Polygamy, as well as Christian Polygamy, Jewish Polygamy, Mormon Polygamy, Muslim Polygamy, and others.

Polygamy Day ® celebrations expanded to include all UCAP. NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com was begun. Books and graduate/post-graduate research began citing me. I started giving speeches to non-polygamous audiences, posting numerous videos online. Yale University (the same venue at which Justice Scalia had likewise keynoted), invited me to present my own keynote. That historic speech was made available on DVD. And eventually, we quietly started the "National Polygamy Advocate PODCAST" to archive the legacy of past media interviews for history.

MORE CO-INCIDENCES OR CONFIRMATIONS

But wait! There's more...

Depending on which way one chooses to perceive, more co-incidences or confirmations began to occur over the following years.

On June 26, 2007, the US Patent and Trademark Office officially trademarked, Polygamy Day ®, with registration number 3,256,270. With absolutely no way to control when such a formal registration occurs, I could only chuckle when I was informed of the date.

On June 26, 2013, the US Supreme Court decided two same sex marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor. While SCOTUS had decided to vacate and remand the former case on a technicality of "lacking legal standing," the latter case established that the federal government must recognize whatever definitions of marriage that a state codifies. Not only did these two Decisions occur 10 years to the day after Lawrence v. Texas, but this date was also the 20-year anniversary of my own June 26, 1993, personal calling.

On June 26, 2015, SCOTUS decided Obergefell v. Hodges, which pro-polygamists view as half-wrong but half-right. Although that case federally expanded legalized marriage to be limited only as an adult "two-person union," the decision did additionally lay down the polygamy-positive argument that marriage is a fundamental right of liberty of the individual.

On June 26, 2018, a Canadian Judge surprised everyone when she chose not to sentence two men convicted of that country's bigamy laws to serve any jailtime (only house arrest). Having expected the sentences to be far worse, this unexpectedly reduced-sentencing gave a positive surprise to polygamists indeed.

Also on June 26, 2018, no longer keeping it quiet, NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com publicly announced the official, "National Polygamy Advocate PODCAST." That date being the 25th year since that prescient realization, I acknowledge here (with yet more chuckles) that that was indeed intentional - neither co-incidence nor confirmation.

However, today, one year later, June 26, 2019, it is indeed another actual co-incidence or confirmation that the sum-total-hours of all of the 67 past media interviews (that have been archived so far on that podcast) exceed just over 26 hours. I know that that was never intentionally planned. Still, I have to smile at the serendipity of such an unplanned result.

JUNE 26, 2019

Here we are today: June 26, 2019.

It is 26 years after I had that "still, small voice" experience. Next week, the movement is an adult celebrating its 25th birthday from its formal July 4, 1994, birth. This coming August 19th, we will be celebrating the 19th Polygamy Day ®.

History has been changed.

From the very start, to the conception, gestation, birth, infancy, into adulthood, the movement truly grew and then expanded beyond itself. All of the events occurring on their respective dates of June 26 fully happened.

Whether one perceives of these as co-incidences or confirmations, it really does not matter. Did I do what I knew I was called to do? The history of these last 26 years bears its own witness either way.

People are certainly free to believe as they perceive. I have simply shared this voyage down my own personal memory lane so that people might know why I always remember this date.

This has been my life. On fire, like a dog on a bone, and still smilingly using that double-metaphor, the evidence is manifest. I have given my life for the advance of Christian Polygamy and thereby making our larger movement possible for overall UCAP, Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy. As the mere human being who has lived and acted accordingly, June 26 will always remain as an unforgettable anniversary.

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Bibliographic URLs:

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JUNE 26, 1993

VIDEO: Bible NEVER Created One Man One Woman Doctrine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot9bfg7dwDQ&list=UUSTmQkSVQMbglFcBb1OJGhA

VIDEO: The Story of David and What it Shows (about God & Polygamy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46McGHIPPzY&list=UUSTmQkSVQMbglFcBb1OJGhA

On this Independence Day, 2019, the new social movement of Christian Polygamy is 25 years old. This modern movement and its unique ethos is what made it possible for the overall national polygamy rights movement of unrelated consenting adult polygamy (UCAP).

2019 Jun 26June 26 and Polygamy

National Polygamy Advocate Mark Henkel personally shares how and why June 26th is such an unforgettable anniversary for Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy.